" ITREALMS: Beware! SIM card hackers

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Beware! SIM card hackers

RECENT trends in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the country has shown that hackers are on the prowl probably to take their own pound of flesh in the nation’s burgeoning telecommunications sector.

Hackers are generically those who intrude other people’s systems to get an unauthorized information or access.

Market Intelligence

Evident of this was the avalanche of calls received by subscribers in the past weeks from some fraudsters claiming to be engineers from various telecommunication companies offering services with the intent that they are checking on subscriber lines.

And in the process these engineers would request their victims to press ash-key 90 (#90) or (#09) or even any other number depending on the new codes they may wish to deploy for their tricks.

Experts, however, warn that by pressing whatever number given to you by these so-called telco engineers, would expose subscribers to fraud which includes unveiling the access code to the Subscribers Identification Module (SIM) popularly known as SIM card.

This is in addition of them stealing your credits thereby making calls at your expense among other ulterior motives.

Although this act was the kind of tapping of other people’s line during the days of NITEL wired lines, the trend seems to have changed in this wireless era.

However, it is also advised that on getting this kind of calls which caller’s identification are usually concealed, it is better to end this call immediately without adhering to their supposed instruction by not pressing any keys or numbers.

The best step, is on ending this call, kindly remember to switch off and on immediately.

Investigations indicated that these group of fraudsters could be targeting unsuspecting Commercial Telephone Operator (CTOs), otherwise known as ‘business center operatives.

Therefore, the telecom regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has definitely another frontier of task to behold, which must be nipped in the bud as soon as possible.

But this could not come to pass without the co-operation of the telecommunications companies.

The earlier NCC tackles this kind of mobile phone hackers, the better and safer for the telecom stakeholders.

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